Lauren's losing her locks

IF you visit Lauren Hagebols 102 days from now, do not be alarmed by her wall art.

The framed dreadlocks hanging proudly in the 26-year-old’s Peregian Beach lounge room will be in the name of love and charity.

Ms Hagebols’ grandfather died on July 27 last year from an aggressive form of lung cancer.
It was only four days earlier that doctors had diagnosed the 79-year-old with the disease.

Ms Hagebols’ decision to chop off her waist-length dreadlocks for Shave for a Cure on March 10 next year is in dedication to him.

“Before grandfather passed away, I deferred primary school studies at university and quit my job,” she said. “I had intended to move to Victoria to help grandma care for him.

“He had been sick with pneumonia in the weeks leading up and did not want treatment for cancer. Unfortunately he passed away a week before I relocated.

“I never got to say goodbye.”

Ms Hagebols has been growing her dreadlocks for six long years and she expects the “big chop” will feel rather strange.

“I am not a hippie but I always wanted to be, so I got dreadlocks,” she said.

“They have become part of who I am, everyone knows me as ‘Lauren with the dreadlocks’.

“I am going the whole way for Shave For a Cure. I will be a skinhead.

“I think I might shed a tear or two.”

Ms Hagebols said the biggest misconception about deadlocks was that they were dirty.

“You have to wash your hair and kept them clean.

“Dreadlocks actually take more effort to maintain than normal hair.”

Ms Hagebols’ decision to lose the chunky Bob Marley-styled locks has put a smile on her mum’s face. “She’ll be happy to see them go,” she said.

“I don’t have a fundraising goal but I figure if start early, there will be plenty of time for everyone to get involved.”
To sponsor Lauren, visit www.worldsgreatestshave.com and search for Lauren Hagebols.